Blue Gnome Emporium

It feels like I've been hitting speed bump after speed bump lately, just when I think the road ahead is smooth and even ground, yet another bump - like those ones on the city streets that have no markings or warning, its not until your front tires launch off the pavement..then, wait for it..the jarring landing where you cringe, trying to figure out what the rattling noise is you've just left behind.

My emotions have been a bundle of exposed nerves, twitching and reacting to everything and anything that's been thrown my way.  Despite the desperate attempts to build some kind of emotional shelter from the barrage of everyday wear and tear, it feels as if my days are a constant uphill trek, scrambling all day to catch up..only to fail, exhausted and defeated from the effort, surrendering to the days end and falling into bed for a night of restless sleep.  

My only solace has been my shop, still in desperate need of a thorough cleaning, this clutter that would usually drive me insane has given me some sort of odd comfort, a cushion from the reality of life.  

Some days are like this I suppose.  

Like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

So I took a day off.  

Despite the mountain of work I had to do in the shop and household duties that needed attending to, we packed a simple lunch and my fuzzy girl and I drove for an hour or so, destination unknown.  Where we ended up was a quiet beach, deserted for the off-season, the tide still frozen along the shoreline in frothy spills.  

It was a cloudy, windy day.  I wasn't properly dressed to be walking in the freezing damp wind and as the cold bit though my woolen mittens and threatened to nibble at my toes, I screamed at the sky and into the wind as loud as I possibly could.  Startled, Sachi stopped dead in her tracks and stared..then slowly, her tail started wagging and when I opened my mouth to scream once more, she took off suddenly down the sandy beach and thundered back to me, eyes bright with excitement and let out a spine chilling howl that seemed to go on 

forever.

And this is how we spent our afternoon that day.  

Screaming and howling, laughing and barking, watching the gulls soaring in the wind.  

Both of us with a few more grays than when we first met 9 years ago but still inseparable and crazy.  And it wasn't until later when we returned to the car shivering, maybe later than that still, not until I was driving home that I realized how long it had been since I last shut off my brain 

and truly listened to my soul.  

I'd like to say that the sun eventually came out that afternoon to cast away all the gloom but that never happened.  Oddly however, the drive back into the city that day under the overcast skies was a beautiful one.  My car smelled of wet dog, I had sand in my hair and Sachi snored the whole way home.  

It was one of those perfect moments I wish I could hold onto forever.

xo Blue Gnome